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Template talk:GG Chronology TOC
I think the suggested change to remove the "Cast" row and add a link "(cast)" after each volume number is good. Perhaps we could also shorten the items in the "Comics Starting" row from, for example, "Nov 2002" to "11-02". Perhaps we could also change the volume numbers from Roman to Arabic numerals at this point. If we could fit all of the volumes (1-13) in act 1 on one row of the table, that would be great! -- William Ansley (talk) 22:55, January 13, 2015 (UTC) : I dislike two digit years. One possibility is just put the year—ambiguous for IX and I but no big deal. On the other hand, "XIII (Cast)" and "13 (Cast)" are not significantly shorter than "12-2012". Another possibility to save space is change the comic link (in this template) to remove the chronology link. : But I don't see any of those as significantly useful. Argadi (talk) 11:59, January 14, 2015 (UTC) : Another approach: Develop icons for comic, chronology, and cast. Cast would be a person, comic an open book (something like this), calendar or clock for chronology. Then use: : I: icon icon icon; II: ... (Maybe just a stream with a key above, not tabular.) : The chronology icon would obviously replace the current cross used for chronology in comic links. Argadi (talk) 12:06, January 14, 2015 (UTC) :: Chronology: There is a Unicode calendar icon (��) but it doesn't display for me. There are several for clock, see this page for some. The first (⌚) works for me. :: Comic. Unicode book (��) doesn't work for me. :: Of course, we could use images and that would work for everyone, but I think Unicode is cool. Can we just mandate that all font file formats change to allow millions of characters instead of the current paltry limits and all fonts include all Unicode characters, and every program displaying text knows the composing rules for all languages represented in Unicode, and this happens on all old computers without causing them to run out of storage and not causing any memory problems for any programs, and this happens by, say, next Tuesday? Where a Spark when you need one? Argadi (talk) 12:20, January 14, 2015 (UTC) ::: An image would be better for comic as it could be in color. Argadi (talk) 12:21, January 14, 2015 (UTC) :::: I think using icons is the way to go. I completely agree with your thoughts about Unicode. It would be great to be able to use Unicode characters, but image files are much safer. I have uploaded three very boring but "readable" icons in the form of PNG files, which I propose as possibilities, at least initially. These are all available under a free license. Attribution is required, but I think I have provided the necessary information in the image "more info" text. -- William Ansley (talk) 18:47, January 14, 2015 (UTC) ::::: I like the icons for cast and chronology, but the comic icon doesn't do it for me. If we don't use a book, how about something which looks like a comic. Argadi (talk) 02:24, January 15, 2015 (UTC) :::::: I have nothing against the idea of using a book icon. I have uploaded two I like. The one with the speech balloon appeals to me especially. I also have no problem with using the color comic page icon you provided, although I think another black and white icon would be more in harmony with the cast and chronology icons I suggested. -- William Ansley (talk) 04:09, January 15, 2015 (UTC) ::::::: No color because you like harmony? Then add color to the calendar icon and horns to the cast page icon! Don't settle for boring in a wiki about Mad Science! Argadi (talk) 12:16, January 15, 2015 (UTC) :::::::: You make a very good point. Boring, lowest-common-denominator icons are the exact opposite of the Girl Genius style. However, there are practical considerations that should be mentioned, anathema though they are to Sparks. Boring icons are more recognizable at small sizes. How big do you envision the icons will be in the Chronology Table of Contents? The icons I have added to this page fit inside a 32 by 32 pixel area, and yours is 30 by 30 pixels, I believe. Do you envision using them at that size? Smaller? Larger? :::::::: I will try to find or create some more interesting icons over the weekend. In the mean time, if volume 2 of act 2 starts tomorrow (and I don't want to make any guesses whether it will or not, at this point), I will add an entry for Friday's page to the end of the current chronology; it can be cut and pasted to a new page easily enough. -- William Ansley (talk) 05:05, January 16, 2015 (UTC) ::::::::: I think 32x32 is probably as large as they should be (with my signature appearing as a 75x225 image when you hover over). ::::::::: The chronology image should look good in a size appropriate for using the link in running text (which may or not be the same size used in the TOC). Argadi (talk) 10:29, January 16, 2015 (UTC) :::::::::: Do you know how to place an image inline in this wiki? My attempts to figure this out or find documentation that explains how to do it have so far turned up nothing. -- William Ansley (talk) 13:14, January 16, 2015 (UTC) ::::::::::: Never mind! I got the answer over on the Wikia Community Central forum. The trick is not to specify anything but the size in the image link, like so: "This is a test of an inline image.", which produces: "This is a test of an inline image." -- William Ansley (talk) 21:17, January 16, 2015 (UTC) Mock-up of new table of contents Here's what I came up with based on the descriptions above. (The links aren't correct.) It is shorter than what we've got now, but it looks kind of dull to me. Also I had to make the pictures smaller to fit nicely on a single line of my terminal. Suggestions? ALSO, how the heck do we sign in now? I can't see a login link anywhere! (Doktor Electrogeist) 16:02, January 19, 2015 (UTC) : Upper right hand corner, same row as the search bar, far right. Argadi (talk) 00:58, January 20, 2015 (UTC) ::: Amazing. I saw that big white box up there and all I could think was "That big thing is just in the way! I hate it." I have to wonder about my powers of observation.... Doktor Electrogeist (talk) 14:17, January 21, 2015 (UTC) Now the images can be a little larger. (Needs a key and some color.) Argadi (talk) 00:58, January 20, 2015 (UTC) :: Yes, the log on is in the drop down menu you see if you click on the icon that looks like a head silhouette. Here is what the TOC would look like with the icons set to 24px: :: Is this to wide to fit on your screen, Doktor Electrogeist? :: And here is what a GG link would look like if the chronology icon was set to 16px and used to replace the existing character in the template (I haven't made any attempt to implement links in this mock up: That's why we have him immobilized. (See panel 9 on this page.) :: Compare to the original: (See panel 9 on this page.) :: As for color, I'll see if I can come up with something. I haven't had any significant time to work on this over the past few days, after all. -- William Ansley (talk) 04:40, January 20, 2015 (UTC) ::: Colored version, 24px: ::: Colored version, 20px: ::: GG link mockup, colored, 16px: That's why we have him immobilized. (See panel 9 on this page.) ::: Is this less boring? ::: The book icon color is meant to suggest the van Rijn book. The cast icon color is meant to suggest the range of complexion tones in Jaegers and other Girl Genius-verse beings. The chronology icon color is meant to look at least slightly steampunked-- William Ansley (talk) 19:39, January 20, 2015 (UTC) Possible final TOC mockup with corrected links Below is a possible final TOC mockup with a key and corrected links. -- William Ansley (talk) 20:12, January 20, 2015 (UTC) : Here is another version. I have put the word key into a separate column and made that cell and the "Act" cells below it into row headers (if I understand how wikia tables work), which seems appropriate. I have also spaced out the items in the key more. -- William Ansley (talk) 22:46, January 20, 2015 (UTC) I like it. Below has one tweak, forcing "Act 1" to be on one line. It looks a little better on a narrow window, Argadi (talk) 01:47, January 21, 2015 (UTC) : Interesting. If I view a page with changes (from the recent changes page) it formats a little different from viewing the page directly. The styles must be affected by viewing the changes at the top. Argadi (talk) 01:50, January 21, 2015 (UTC) : Very nice. It seems to fit well on my screen -- mostly. At first volumes 1 to 10 had three lines while 11 to 13 had only two, but now as I look at it, they're all two lines. I don't know what was different between those views. : Shall we make it so? Doktor Electrogeist (talk) 14:14, January 21, 2015 (UTC) :: PS: here it is with the "powder-blue" background for the selected volume. I think it still looks fine. Doktor Electrogeist (talk) 14:38, January 21, 2015 (UTC) ::: PPS: I went ahead and changed the template -- it looks good and apparently I would fail the marshmallow test within seconds. (I need to add ?action=purge to see the new template in the old pages.) ::: And once again I'm seeing the table in its three line/two line form -- so far here on this talk page is the only place I've seen it, and maybe it's only while I'm editing.... Yup, just in the editor. Doktor Electrogeist (talk) 15:18, January 21, 2015 (UTC) :::: Fantastic, Doktor, fantastic! I really do appreciate you taking care of all of this tremendously. However, I have one really nitpicky thing to ask. Is it possible to change the appearance of the text in the cell of the table for the current chronology page (the one with the powder blue background) so that it is larger and bolder, the way it was in the previous version of the template? Or does this mess up the formatting of the table? How about just making it bold? -- William Ansley (talk) 17:53, January 21, 2015 (UTC) ::::: Never mind! I figured out how to make the change myself. Please let me know if this messes up the formatting of the chronology TOC tables for either of you and free free to undo my edits if it does. -- William Ansley (talk) 19:38, January 21, 2015 (UTC) Fixing my mess Well, my changes did mess up the formatting of the GG Chronology TOC table, and I am finally(!) getting around to cleaning up my mess. Even enlarging the font size by 10% (setting it to 110%) causes the wrapping problem, so I finally gave up on enlarging the text and just made it bold. This looks fine; much better than having the icons wrap onto an extra line in the cell for the current volume, so I am satisfied. My apologies for the long delay during which the GG Chronology TOC was messed up. -- William Ansley (talk) 19:05, August 11, 2015 (UTC)